My Mini is a 1988 Mini City. The plan is to keep it looking fairly standard on the outside. Its bright red with a white roof and white wheels. This is a pretty smart look to start with. I will fit extended wheel arches to cover the wider wheels and tyres, but other than that the externals are going to remain unchanged. A wolf in sheep’s clothing :-)

The shell looks solid. A few rust spots on the door bottoms. A rust spot on the scuttle just below the windscreen, a few bubbles on the wings and a fair bit of rust behind the front bumper. The plan is to replace the front with a GRP one. That will instantly remove the majority of the rust problem. The scuttle will need a repair and the drivers door will need attention. The only other point  that is of concern is the drivers foot well. The foot well isn’t rusty as far as I can see at the moment, but it looks like someone jacked the car up at the wrong point, pushing the floor pan inwards.

Front Body Work - Wing Removal.

I had already removed the sub frame, but to make access easier I cut out the front cross members so I could walk in to the engine bay and it meant I could deal with each wind separately. In preparation I removed the wiring to the lights on either wing and removed the flexi air pipe from under the wings. The first cut proper was up the raised seam from the wheel arch to the windscreen scuttle. For this I used a hack saw to get it started, then I found a jig saw worked very well up to about 4cms from the top. The last bit to the scuttle seam I did with a hacksaw blade. Next job was cutting up the inner wing. The cut was made just in front on the suspension tower mounts.  I did this by chain drilling and chisel (not very subtle I know), I did this an inch out from where I really wanted to cut, as I new I could use a hacksaw later to get a nice clean finished edge. The next cut was into the wing top and back to the windscreen scuttle (hacksaw and jigsaw ). Again, I knew a second cut wound be needed to get a clean finish, but it got the majority of the wing out of the way. This just left the seam along the wing top/screen scuttle, with a bit of waggling this seam broke away. Now I could get the hacksaw into the inner wing area to make a neat finish and to the inner wing top to do the same. The same on the other side and the mini was looking very short! It did reveal some rust :-( At one point on the wing/scuttle seam rust had worked into both panels. This wasn’t a problem on the wing as it was going in the bin, but it left a hole in the scuttle. 

Drivers wing removed

Note the rust hole on the scuttle

Looks very short now, add a pair of head lamps and it looks like a Smart!

Welding

I decided to have a go at doing the weld repairs myself. I bought a basic MIG welder and practiced on scrap bits first. I bought a scuttle corner repair panel. I carefully cut out the rotten bit of the scuttle and then carefully trimmed the repair panel to match the cut out. I cleaned each part until it was bright metal and away I went with the MIG. Even if I say so my self, not a bad job...not the tidiest weld in the world but once I’d ground it down with the angle grinder it was pretty good. It was then filler, primer and painted...as good as new.

The hardest bit on the car to weld was a small hole at the bottom of the wheel arch where the floor pan meets it. The shape meant it was impossible to get the metal really clean across the whole of the weld area, plus working at an odd angle.

Fibre Glass Body

I bought a fibreglass front-end via Z-cars. This was easy to mount. I fibre glassed some mounting plates to mate up to the inner wings. A simple bracket went on to the back of the wheel arch (to be hidden by the flared wheel arches. The front used 2 bolts from the sub frame. A fibre glassed repair washes onto the back of the panels where I bolted through to re-enforce the areas.

I wanted the bonnet to lift like the original rather than dzus fasteners all round. To do this I replicated the mounting brackets under then bonnet by glassing some brackets onto the panel’s under side. Fitting the bonnet was a nightmare. Figuring out where to drill the holes in my brakes to bolt onto the hinges was very difficult as once the bonnet is in position you can’t get at the hinges to mark the brackets. Eventually I made a stab at it. I ended up slotting the holes to allow adjustment. Then I had the fun and games of tweaking it so that as it opened it cleared the edge of the scuttle panel. Once I’d fitted it I took it all off to send to the painters.... so I had the game all over again when I got it back again all painted up.

The boot lid was replaced for a fibreglass version. This was a lot easier to do than the bonnet. A bit of careful measuring and marking to get the holes in the right place to drop the number plate light on and the lock, but not that tricky. Then just a bit of fibre glassing to put a couple of brackets to mount the check straps to. Once back from the painters I silicon sealered the rubber boot seal strip into place and fitted to the body. As it was a single skin boot lid the original lock wouldn’t hold it shut very well so I but bonnet pins at each top corner.

Glazing

The original front screen was cracked in the corner, so had to be replaced. I bought a second hand screen from eBay for £5, but on closer inspection (once I’d got it home) it was pitted in places. It looked like weld splatter, I decided it wasn’t worth fitting. I opted for a new screen at this point. £45 got me a brand new screen with a dark, tinted strip across the top. For that price its hardly worth messing with second hand screen.

In an effort to keep the weight down I opted for using plastic windows. I could have replaced the whole lot with plastic, but as I want it to be a fast road car, as well as a track day car this wasn’t a practical solution. Now available are coated polycarbonate windscreens that don’t mark anything like they used to, OK for competition used but probably not OK for everyday traffic use. The door windows could have been replaced but I didn’t want the silly door slider things but I sill wanted ventilation, so I opted for retaining the glass wind down windows. This just left the rear screen and rear quarters. I got a set of polycarbonate ones from Airedale Race Components. I have a vague plan to swap the doors for fibreglass ones with  MK1 style sliding 2 part glazing, at this point I will change to plastic front windows.

Window fitting

What a git of a job! If you read around the “interweb”  they are loads of people who swear by one method or other as to how to fit mini screens....well here is my experience:-

1)      spray outside (body to rubber) slot of seal with silcon/WD40

2)    fit rubber into bodywork

3)    spray inside (glass to rubber) slot of seal with silicon/WD40

4)    drop windscreen into the seal, starting at the bottom

5)    work around the screen pulling the glass into the rubber with a plastic push-bike tyre lever where necessary.

6)    Work the glass and seal around to help get the glass in.

7)    The last corner is tough but so is the windscreen, the lever will pop it in

Next the locking strip:-

8)    Buy, beg, borrow the correct too! This is the wire loop with a roller on the back of it. The roller REALLY helps here.

9)    Lubricate the slot with some soap, I used some liquid hand soap diluted a bit.

10) With the tool, work the strip into the slot. The wire bit opens up the slot and the roller pushes the strip into the slot. Its hand to have an assistant helping feed the strip into the tool, they can twist the strip for you to get it going in squarely.

11)  Be careful that the strip is all the way in, if not back up and redo that section. The corners are the tricky points, once side of the strip tends to pop out.

12) Work around until you get to the end.

The rear screen is the same as the front. Although was a little bit trickier as the curve is such that the top dips and the seal likes to pop out if you aren’t careful.

Many reports I’ve read say things like “you’ll only have a chance with a new seal”, or “you need a new locking strip”. My experience was that it works fine with an old seal and only locking strip. Although, obviously, if either were looking way past their best I would have replaced them.

Plastic window fitting.

The rear windows, as I mentioned above, were replaced with polycarbonate ones. The rear screen was an exactly copy of the glass one, so fitting was as per a normal rear screen. It had the advantage of being easier to handle than a glass on. The side windows needed a bit more work. The windows were cut to match the bodywork cut out, so if I’d just stuck or bolted them in you would have seen the ragged edge of the body through the screen. So I masked up the window and sprayed a 15mm boarder onto the window. I made up so aluminium tags that I riveted onto the top and bottom of the frame then simply silicon sealed the window into the aperture then bent the aluminium tabs over the window edge to make a mechanical retainer.

Arches

I bought some fibreglass arches from XXX. These were a bit disappointing. They were billed as fitting 13x7 inch wheels. This is pushing things a bit. They fit OK over the rears, but the fronts are very marginal. The fit is poor around where the body curves round to the front. I think these will be replaced by better items, some proper “Sports pack” items probably.

Finishing touches

The body looks a bit bare. It needed naming. I found a guy on EBay selling sheets of decals for various motorbikes R1, fireblade etc. I asked him if he could to some specials for me, and he gladly did a sheet of “YAMAmini R1” decals.